


A Kind of Peace

by ClaudiaRain



Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-15 06:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18068714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaudiaRain/pseuds/ClaudiaRain
Summary: Lately, he’s been wondering…not if they could be more, but if maybe they already are.





	A Kind of Peace

**Author's Note:**

> This is set a little ways in the future, but not too far. Assume spoilers through all current episodes, and I've added a few things to their backgrounds to help this along. I had a lot of fun with this, so I hope others get some enjoyment from it, too!

He’s being watched.

Thomas can feel it as he emerges from sleep, before he even opens his eyes, and for a moment, he’s not safe. Not at Robin’s Nest. Not even in Hawaii. He’s thousands of miles away, trying to feign sleep, trying not to let his captors realize he’s awake and –

No.

 _No_.

He knows where he is and it’s not –

It can’t be –

_He can’t have dreamed everything that came after._

He snaps his eyes open, unable to help his shuddering exhale of relief upon noticing the familiar ceiling above him. He’s lying on an incredibly comfortable couch in a lavish mansion situated on a multi-million dollar estate. And if his past self could see his change in circumstances…

Well, he’d never have believed it. (Thomas still isn’t sure _he_ believes it, sometimes.)

But years of training, of _survival_ , haven’t failed him, either.

He’s definitely being watched.

He slowly turns his head to find one of the dogs (he thinks it’s Apollo, but they’re pretty much interchangeable to him) sitting a few feet away. Staring at him. Without blinking.

_What is it they say about dogs? Meet their eyes and don’t show fear? Or is it avoid their eyes to keep from unintentionally issuing a direct challenge?_

For the life of him (maybe literally) he can’t remember.

He carefully looks away from the dog, moving only his eyes in a quick sweep of the room that reveals Juliet Higgins is nowhere in sight to call off the animal, if need be.

Not reassuring.

Since the dog hasn’t started growling, or made any otherwise threatening moves, Thomas dares to move his head a little, searching for his phone. Of course, it’s nowhere to be found. Had he left it in the guest house? Probably. He does that a lot, especially when he comes over to ask (alright, occasionally to _beg_ ) Juliet for her help with various things.

Tonight, he’d come to the main house to talk to her about a recent case and go over some surveillance footage, but it had been pretty late. She’d wandered off to go do something else – he had no idea what, maybe brush up on some lethal fighting skills (he’s pretty sure she was an assassin, no matter how much she denies it) – and he’d decided to lie down ‘for a few minutes’. He’d never intended to fall asleep and there’s no way Juliet knew he had, either, because she’d have taken unnatural pleasure in kicking him out and back to the guest house for the night.

The clock on the wall tells him it’s past 1 am, which means he’d been asleep for over two hours on the couch.

The dog issues some kind of sound low in its throat, not quite a growl, but not exactly a friendly greeting, either.

 _So this is how he’s going to die_.

It’s rather disheartening, really, that he survived war, he survived _literal torture_ , and this is going to be how he meets his end.

He sits up slowly, clearly telegraphing his movements before he makes them, and he’s mostly surprised with each passing second that the dog doesn’t lunge at him. There’s something…off about this one tonight. It’s not acting like it normally does. Barking incessantly or growling at him in a warning that he has approximately ten seconds to live.

That’s his first clue something’s wrong.

The second is a prickling at the back of his neck.

And the third…

A distinctly distressed whining comes from his left and he turns to find the second dog standing in the doorway; that one isn’t acting aggressively, either.

Thomas switches his attention back to the one who’d been watching him sleep and wryly asks, “Were you waiting for your friend so you could dine on me together?”

When neither dog moves, he gets to his feet, because there’s no other way out of this. He can’t stay on the couch all night – especially not if (as his instincts are telling him) something isn’t right.

He wishes he had a weapon, but they’re all secured back in the guest house – right where they’ll come in handy. He considers going to get one, but that’s when the dog nearest him walks over to join his friend in the doorway, the two of them watching Thomas in a way he can only describe as _imploring_.

As if reading his thoughts, they both start whining at the same time, pawing restlessly at the floor and glancing between him and the hallway beyond. They want him for something. They need his _help_ for something. And the only thing that they even _remotely_ care about on this estate –

_Juliet._

All thoughts vanish except for her; he casts aside his fear of the dogs, moving past them to head straight for her bedroom.

Surely there’s not some kind of danger in the house that he’s unaware of – there _can’t_ be. First of all, Juliet can take care of herself as well as anyone he knows, if not better. Secondly, the dogs would be up in arms if there were an intruder or something of that nature. …Right?

Within twenty seconds, he’s outside her closed bedroom door and the dogs are hot on his heels, edging past him to push against it as they whimper.

His concern gives way to annoyance as he glares at them, hissing in aggravation, “Are you two just using me because she shut you out of her bedroom?” The only answer he gets is one of them nudging at his hand, which is near the doorknob.

He tries to take a step back, but the dogs circle behind him, blocking his exit down the hall. Their whimpering hasn’t stopped, either, which means he can’t hear anything else. Unthinkingly, he holds up a hand and they immediately cease making noise. He doesn’t have time to dwell on that oddity before he hears some kind of faint (and unidentifiable) sound coming from Juliet’s room.

He looks between the dogs and the door a few times before making up his mind. They aren’t going to willingly let him go, and their strange behavior coupled with the noise from her room means that he’s starting to feel something like actual fear.

He knocks lightly on the door a few times while calling Juliet’s name.

There’s no answer, so he tries again, louder this time.

Silence once again greets him, but after a few seconds, he thinks he hears what might be a low thud from the other side of the door. He can’t tell for sure – this house is just too well-built, which means sound doesn’t carry easily through doors and walls.

So if she really _is_ in some kind of trouble, he wouldn’t necessarily have any way of knowing.

That’s what gets him to reach for the doorknob, surprised when it easily twists – he’d have expected her to lock her room at night.

Then again, maybe she’s sure enough of herself (and the murderous animals she fondly refers to as ‘pets’) that she doesn’t feel the need.

He gently pushes the door open, calling her name again quietly, not wanting to startle her if she’s actually sleeping. He still gets no answer, and he’s surprised when the dogs don’t go rushing past him into the room. He takes some comfort in the fact that it means there isn’t any kind of overt threat in there, at least. (And honestly, the dogs might be as fearful of breaking her unspoken rule to stay out as Thomas suddenly is.)

He’s come this far, though. He might as well continue, since merely opening her door without invitation is probably enough to land him on her bad side for an entire month. (Add it to his existing tally, then, because he’s fairly sure he’s already racked up enough infractions to take him _well_ into next year; she’ll probably share the itemized list if he asks nicely enough.)

He takes a few cautious steps inside. The room’s almost completely dark, every light off, but the curtains on the glass balcony doors are slightly askew, which lets in some faint moonlight. Even though the dogs still haven’t reacted, he scans the room as best he can while his eyes slowly adjust; years of training are impossible to ignore – he has too many memories of danger appearing from nowhere, even at times when he’d concluded there were no imminent threats in the vicinity.

Once he’s satisfied that nothing’s amiss, his eyes are drawn to the bed, where he can barely make out the way the blankets and pillows are piled more towards the middle of it. There’s a slight glint in their midst from Juliet’s blonde hair, where the moonlight’s hitting it just right, but there’s no movement from her. There’s no sound in the room, either, save for the subtle hum of the air conditioning vents.

There’s a dark shape on the floor by the edge of the bed, and he steps closer, realizing it’s a book. He wonders if that was the thud he heard earlier, and takes a moment to consider that he might have come in here for nothing – just the sound of a book falling to the floor as she moved in her sleep.

But what about the other sound, the one he hadn't been able to identify? Had he imagined that? He’s well-aware of the tricks that fear can play on the mind, and he’d definitely been afraid as he stood outside her room, not knowing what was happening inside. Apparently she’s fine, though, and he should seize the opportunity to get out of there before she wakes up.

He takes a step back towards the door and that’s when the dogs begin lowly growling.

“Oh come on,” he grits out. “You’re going to do this to me now?!”

It pretty much sums up his luck that they’d turn on him right when he was about to escape scot-free.

He honestly doesn’t know who he’d rather confront: the two animals when they’re unhappy with him or Juliet upon finding him standing in her bedroom in the middle of the night.

The next instant, the choice is abruptly made for him when Juliet starts thrashing around in the bed, her sudden distress causing the dogs to switch their focus to her, growls fading as their whimpering resumes. Her motions are violent enough that Thomas thinks, for a split second, that maybe he’d been mistaken. Maybe she _isn’t_ alone in the bed after all, and she’s fighting against someone – he’s at the side of the bed before he even registers that he’s moving, all the air leaving him in a rush when he’s close enough to confirm that she is, indeed, completely alone.

“Juliet,” he says firmly, but gets no response. So he says it again, and again, but wherever she is in her own mind, she can’t hear him; she’s in the throes of a nightmare – he’s lived enough of them that he recognizes that terror for what it is. His heart almost falls out of his chest when he realizes that she’s not only fighting in her sleep, but has started crying as well.

He has no idea how she hasn’t woken up, because her struggles are getting progressively worse, and the dogs are getting louder, and he really doesn’t have any good options here. He can’t leave her – she’s clearly suffering and he’s also fairly sure the dogs will eat him alive if he tries to get past them now. (And none of that says anything about how much he’d hate _himself_ if he left her like this.)

He gingerly sits on the edge of the bed, readies himself as best he can, then reaches out to take hold of her shoulder while saying her name a final time –

– and he hasn’t prepared well enough, because a second later, before he can so much as _blink_ , Juliet is up on her knees next to him and there’s something pressed against his throat, right over his carotid artery. From the cold feeling, he knows it’s a blade.

He’s felt that before. Many times.

_So he’d been wrong earlier with the dogs._

_This_ is how he’s going to die.

His mind automatically transitions to that place where he’s always calm, even in situations like this. ( _Because he literally cannot afford to be any other way and make it out alive._ )

The dogs have gone quiet behind him – so unnaturally quiet that for a briefly absurd moment, Thomas wonders if he’s dead already.

But no, he can feel his heart beating, and he forces himself to breathe with painful slowness, because too much movement might upset their precarious positions and he’s a hairsbreadth from –

No. Not productive. _Those thoughts are not productive._ He focuses on the warmth of her right up against him, as close as they’ve ever been – maybe closer, even. (Too close, in fact, if this were a hand-to-hand combat situation, because he could use that closeness to his advantage…except for the knife. He doesn’t want to risk doing anything yet because of it.)

He and Juliet spend a lot of time together – _most_ of their time, in fact, with the way she’s been assisting him on cases since they met. They’ve gotten to know each other pretty well, but even if they hadn’t, he’d _still_ have no fear that she would intentionally hurt him, let alone kill him. This situation is due to an instinctive reaction her conscious mind couldn’t control.

It’s too dark, and she’s facing away from the moonlight, so he can’t see her eyes that well. “Juliet,” he says, praying she’s truly awake and just needs a few moments to process, because he has no idea what he’s going to do if this is some kind of sleepwalking situation. “It’s me. It’s _me_.” (It doesn’t even occur to him to specify who the ‘me’ in question is.)

He’s met with nearly twenty seconds of silence. He knows because he counts every single one of them, in the spaces between his heartbeats and her shallow breathing.

“Tho-Thomas?” she finally asks, voice quiet, and shaking in a way he’s never heard from her before. (It must be a testament to her years of training that the shaking doesn’t extend to her hand – for which he’s extraordinarily grateful.)

He exhales, cautious not to move too much when he does it. “Seriously, Higgins, I should have known you slept with a knife.”

She hasn’t moved, blade still pressed to his neck as she stares at him in confusion and disbelief and probably some sort of shock. “Thomas?” she repeats, on a whisper, like she honestly can’t believe he’s there (and neither can he, really). She turns her head slightly, and in the faint moonlight he can see that her face is still wet from the tears she’d been crying in her sleep. He abruptly wants to pull her into a hug, but the primal part of his mind wisely reminds him that he’s only a centimeter or so from certain death.

“Juliet.” He takes another careful breath. “I happen to enjoy living and want to keep doing it. So if you wouldn’t mind…?”

Her eyes flick from his face down to the blade at his neck. Her mouth drops open, like she can’t understand what she’s looking at, even though it’s her hand attached to the weapon held against him. She doesn’t move, though – maybe she’s not capable of it right now, so he dares to (very slowly) lift his hand and wrap it around hers, where she’s holding onto the knife.

“Let go,” he says, making sure it’s an order, not a question or a plea. Something in her eyes flickers in recognition and she sucks in a breath, relaxing her hand to allow the knife to drop harmlessly onto the bed between them. She lets her hand fall from his neck, but he doesn’t relinquish his hold on it, and she doesn’t pull away, either.

He uses his free hand to snap the knife shut (it’s a switchblade, the versatility of which seems to fit her rather well), and finally allows himself to take a deep breath. The dogs are lowly whimpering again, to the point that Thomas almost can’t hear them, and he glances their way. “You traitors were hoping she’d kill me so you wouldn’t have to be bothered with the work, am I right?”

His words must break whatever spell she’s under because she jerks her head up from where she’d been staring at their hands. “Why are –” She shakes her head a little. “Why did you –” Her inability to form a complete sentence pulls at him, but he stays quiet, letting her gather her thoughts. “What were you _thinking_?” she finally manages to choke out.

“That you needed –” She tenses and he can’t bring himself to finish with ‘ _me_ ’. “– someone.” He tightens his grip on her hand. “That you needed _someone_.”

“I almost – do you _understand_ –” She’s making a concerted effort to try and regain herself, but she’s failing; he can tell by how rapid her breathing has become. She gives up on trying to form another sentence and moves her hand – the one he’s still holding onto – up to his chest to press against one of his scars through his shirt. It’s an injury that had almost killed him – a _lot_ of injuries had almost killed him, but that one…that one might be the worst. And maybe he should be surprised that she remembers where it is, but he’s not. (He doesn’t think Juliet Higgins forgets _anything_.)

The quietness, the _tenderness_ of the moment, is why he’s so caught off-guard when she suddenly wrenches her hand free of his in order to shove him backwards – he almost falls off the bed, barely managing to catch himself in time with a grip on the headboard.

“Are you insane?!” She’s trying to scream at him, but her voice is hoarse, maybe from the crying, so it doesn’t quite get there. “What is _wrong_ with you? Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed?”

“If I was trying to get myself killed,” he says evenly, “I’d have done it a long time ago. We both know I’ve had plenty of chances.”

His answer must enrage her because she moves to push him again, but Thomas Magnum rarely makes the same mistake twice – he’s ready for her this time, grabbing her wrists before she can make contact. A struggle ensues where she tries to push him off the bed and he tries not to get injured while also keeping her from inadvertently hurting herself in the process. He’s acutely aware of the dogs watching them – he really has no idea why they haven’t started growling at him again, because for all intents and purposes, it looks like _he_ might be the one trying to hurt _her_ , instead of just trying to fend her off.

The dogs must know better than to get involved in this one, though, since they carefully keep their distance.

“Juliet,” he says, trying to get through to her again. “ _Juliet_.”

And then, in a change that (almost literally) gives him whiplash, she’s no longer trying to push him away, but pulling him closer instead. He almost falls onto her at the momentum shift before compensating to keep them both upright. He suspects it’s a tactic to get him off-balance until she throws her arms around him, hugging him for all she’s worth as she rests her forehead against his shoulder.

“I was prepared to kill you,” she gasps, sounding like she’s trying not to cry, and struggling for air in the process. “I _wanted_ to kill you. Not you, specifically, Thomas, but whoever was in my room.”

“That’s exactly the reaction you should have had.” He finally takes the opportunity to wrap his arms around her in return. “It was as much my fault as yours.”

She’s shaking her head against him. “It’s not. I should have recognized you faster. I should have been able to curb my reflexes, not nearly…” Her voice drops to a near-whisper. “… _slit your throat_.”

“I’m really good at cheating death,” he promises. “I’ve had a lot of practice. Besides, if you hadn’t responded to my voice, plan B was to disarm you. Which I would have done quite easily.” They both know he’s exaggerating, that any real fight between them would have been brutal, but that doesn’t keep him from taunting, “Face it, Higgins, your skills are nothing compared to mine.”

Her laughter is strangled as she presses even closer to him, and he runs a soothing hand down her back. He has no idea how long they stay like that, holding onto each other, but part of him thinks it could never be long enough.

“You could be dead right now,” she finally says, “because of… _me_.” The words are nearly lost between them for how quiet they are, but he can still hear the devastation in them.

He stares off into the dark recesses of her bedroom, seeing images flicker past in his mind: the faces of every person who’d ever tried to hurt him. Who’d ever tried to _kill_ him. There are a lot of them (too many for one lifetime), but Juliet Higgins is not one of them.

And she never will be.

“I’m alive,” he says, against her temple. “I’m right here.”

It’s like she can’t hear him. “I could have _killed_ you.”

“Juliet.” He leans back to search her face. “You didn’t. You _wouldn’t_.” The underlying subtext of it hangs in the air between them: she’s not the one responsible for his suffering or his scars. And he’d never fear her, because his faith (his _trust_ ) in her is absolute.

“But I  _could_ have,” she insists, becoming angry in a way he recognizes (and loves). “Do you have any _idea_ what that would have done to me?”

“To _you_?” he almost laughs. “What about what it would have done to _me_?”

Her lips quirk up slightly before she ruthlessly suppresses the amusement. “This is serious, Magnum. I almost –”

“Almost doesn’t count,” he interrupts, which happens to be one of his favorite sayings because… “If it did, I’d be in a world of trouble.”

“As if you’re not _always_ in a world of troub–” She breaks off mid-word, eyes widening as she gets up on her knees again and leans closer to him. _And closer_. Close enough that he thinks she might –

She presses her fingers to his neck, then pulls them away, and the black color staining her fingertips throws him for a second before he realizes what happened – they can’t see the true color because of the dimness of the room.

“Juliet –”

“You’re bleeding,” she says dully, without tearing her eyes away from her fingers.

He runs a hand over his neck and then looks at it. There’s less blood already and it doesn’t hurt, either; he can tell it’s more of a nick than anything else. “I’ve done worse to myself shaving.”

“ _Thomas_.”

Sensing she’s not going to be open to rational arguments anytime soon, he defaults back to his usual humor to put her at ease. “The blood isn’t going to set off the dogs, is it?”

“What?” she asks, briefly meeting his eyes before returning her gaze to his neck.

“Will they sense that I’m vulnerable prey because I’ve been injured?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she admonishes, “though I know that’s an impossible task for you.”

He grins as he slides off the bed, relieved that she’s easily fallen back into their bickering. Even though he was (mostly) kidding about the dogs attacking at the first hint of blood, he makes sure to give them a wide berth as he heads for the connecting bathroom to wash his hands. There’s a small night light plugged in near the sink, and he grimaces when he sees the blood on his neck – it’s not a lot, but it’s spread out so it looks worse than it is. When he cleans it off, he’s able to see that the nick’s as small as he guessed. Juliet hadn’t pressed down when she held the knife to his throat, which means the cut must have been from the sharpness of the blade merely making contact with his skin.

Well, at least she takes good care of her weapons.

He runs a washcloth under the water and returns to the bedroom. Juliet’s staring at her fingers again, and just like him, he can tell she’s seeing a lot more than what’s in front of her eyes. He throws the washcloth at her, causing her to blink at him and issue a startled, “Magnum!”

He freezes, expecting a reaction from the dogs, but they’re now lying on the floor at the foot of the bed and don’t so much as look up at him.

“Wash off the blood,” he tells her, which earns him a mild glare, but she doesn’t comment as she picks up the cloth. It’s probably just as well, because from the way she ducks her head, he thinks that emotion might be close to overwhelming her again.

He’d been thinking about bidding her goodnight and leaving, since the nightmare’s over and everything ( _everything being relative_ ) seems fine now. But she’s not fine. He can tell she’s not. And if he couldn’t leave her before, he certainly can’t leave her _now_.

He moves closer to the bed, suspicions confirmed when she instantly turns away from him, and not for the first time, he _hates_ that their lives just… _couldn’t have been easy_. He wishes that he’d never been captured and tortured and come close to dying a half-dozen times – wishes that he’d never been to war, at all. He wishes she’d never seen the horrific things she had while working for MI6 – wishes she hadn’t been destined to fall in love with a man who’d end up brutally murdered. He wishes they’d both been spared the heart-wrenching betrayal of those closest to them: the absolute worst kind that still shapes their lives and affects how hard it is for them to trust anyone. But if they hadn’t lived through any of that, they wouldn’t be here with each other right now.

After Hannah, he’d made the conscious decision not to shut down completely, as tempting as it’d been. He hadn’t wanted to close himself off from other people, from  _life_  – she didn’t get to take that from him. But he’d been understandably wary, constantly reminding himself to be careful of others, of feeling too much for _anyone_. (Because that was dangerous in an entirely different way than the horrors of war.)

So he still lets people in, but never too far. He still feels, but never too deeply. His outward demeanor is partly his genuine nature, but also partly crafted to keep others from ever getting close enough to hurt him the way he’d been hurt in the past.

And then one day, he’d opened his eyes and Juliet was _right there_. She’d somehow gotten inside when he couldn’t even remember opening the door. He has no idea how she’d slipped past his defenses, but she had. And he doesn’t want her to be anywhere else. It feels like she _belongs_ here. With him. Wherever it is that they are. 

Sometimes, when he looks at her…he thinks that he could throw out every rule, break down every barrier, and do it all again.

Juliet Higgins makes him _want_ to do it all again.

She hasn’t washed off the blood, she’s just taken her other hand and pressed it to her eyes as she tries to breathe.

He retakes his seat on the edge of the bed, switching on the bedside lamp. It casts a low, warm glow around them, dim enough not to be intrusive, but bright enough that he can better make out her and their surroundings.

“That’s not my blood you’re seeing, is it?” he asks, wondering if she’ll let him reach out and touch her. Or if she’ll push him away.

“How do you…know that?” she asks, rather hesitantly.

“We’ve lived a lot of the same things,” he reminds her, picking up the washcloth and taking hold of her blood-stained hand; when she lets him do it, he relaxes significantly. “Too many of the same things, if you ask me.”

She doesn’t respond to that, watching mutely as he runs the cloth over her fingers until they’re as clean as his, at least on the surface. (There’s plenty of blood on both of their hands that no amount of washing will ever get out.)

He tosses the cloth towards the corner of the room, into what he thinks is a hamper, but her aggrieved sigh informs him otherwise.

“That’s a decorative basket, Thomas.”

He’s completely baffled. “Who puts empty baskets around their room for decoration?”

“I do,” she says primly.

“There’s a lot wrong with you, Higgins,” he informs her, gratified when she cracks a smile, which was all he’d been aiming for.

“It’s rather ironic to hear that coming from _Thomas Magnum_ , of all people,” she says, rather huffily, as she flexes her now-clean hand a few times. It must remind her of where the blood came from, since she returns her attention to his neck, and her relief is palpable when she realizes the cut’s nowhere near as bad as she’d thought.

“See?” He brushes a finger over the minor injury, which is no longer bleeding. “Told you that I’ve done much worse to myself.”

“That was never in doubt, considering the dire trouble you get yourself into near-weekly,” she shoots back. Her voice gentles, taking on a distinctly guilty note when she adds, “I’m not used to being the one who…hurts you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

“The cut on your neck says otherwise.”

“Too minor to count,” he insists. “And occasional mishap aside, you never hurt me.” He pauses before adding slyly, “Unless you count emotionally.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffs, trying not to laugh, which spurs him on.

“Words hurt,” he says archly. “Some might say they cut…”

“Don’t you dare.”

“…as sharp as…”

“ _Thomas_.”

“…knives.”

She loses the fight against her laughter, pushing him backwards in a much gentler move than when she’d done it before. And he knows that if she can laugh about it so soon, then they’ll be okay.

“How long are you going to use this against me?” she asks, trying to sound put out, but there’s a hint of worry and that ever-present guilt.

“Depends, how many favors will it buy me?”

“As if you’re ever worried about paying for favors,” she says, wryly.

“You’re the one who keeps letting me get away with it. And I like to think I pay you back in kind whenever possible.”

“You do,” she murmurs, voice turning serious, and he knows exactly what she’s thinking about. Her eyes linger on his neck again. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” he replies, “for scaring you the way I did. I’m very glad the night didn’t end with me bleeding out all over your bed.”

“It would have been an unthinkable loss,” she agrees, gravely. “That bedspread cost $1000.”

He whistles, running a hand over the quilt beneath him. “$1000?” _Wait a minute._ “How much does Robin pay you?” he asks suspiciously.

“Every penny that I’m worth,” she says smugly.

“And how many pennies is that?”

“Forget it,” she mutters. “I take back my apology.”

“Juliet.” He waits for her to reluctantly look at him again. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You never have to apologize – to _anyone_ – for the instincts that are meant to save your life.”

One of the dogs shuffles positions on the floor before settling back down, and Juliet looks over at her open bedroom door, then back at Thomas. He can practically see the wheels turning in her head.

“What drew you to my room?” she asks. “Could you hear me?” She hesitates. “Yelling?”

It takes everything in him to not show his inwardly tortured reaction to that. (Because it means it’s happened before, often enough that she considers it a regular thing, and _he’s never known despite the fact that he sleeps a few hundred yards away from her_.)

“The dogs led me here,” he tells her. “I fell asleep on the couch and woke up to find one of them watching me, though I now think he probably made some kind of noise to wake me. They started whimpering, trying to get my attention, and I knew it had to have something to do with you.”

She nods once, shortly. “I’m sorry about that, too. If I knew you were in the main house, I would never have left them out there with you.” She worries at her lower lip, and he realizes that she’s afraid he won’t believe her. “You should know by now that they wouldn’t actually hurt you, but I know you still don’t…love them.”

Perhaps because they’re being talked about, one of the dogs stands and meanders over to the edge of the bed, resting his head on it as he stares at Juliet. Thomas gets the uncanny sense that he’s checking to make sure she’s alright. Juliet leans down, putting her hands on either side of the dog’s face and rests her forehead on his, murmuring an apology; something in Thomas threatens to break apart at the sight.

“It’s okay, Apollo,” she tells the dog, pulling back. “I’m okay.”

The dog twists his head towards Thomas, like he’s seeking some sort of confirmation.

He slowly reaches out a hand (he still has another one if this goes wrong, right?) and carefully runs it over the dog’s head. “Thank you,” he murmurs. _For coming to get me. For loving her as much as you do_. He can tell Apollo hears what he’s left unsaid from the way the animal licks his palm in response, causing Juliet to inhale sharply. They watch him return to his friend, the two dogs curling around each other in the easy, uncomplicated way that only animals, or people who love each other, can seem to manage.

“The dogs and I might be getting along better after tonight,” Thomas tells her.

“Are you kidding?” she breathes. “You just made two best friends for life.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

“I would,” she insists. “They’re rather attached to me, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“You’re pretty easy to get attached to,” he says, without thinking about it. When she glances at him sharply, he doesn’t look away. “Is this…” He vaguely waves a hand, encompassing everything that had happened in the past half hour. “…the reason you shut the dogs out of the room?”

“Yes,” she says, shoulders slumping as a dejected note enters her voice. “I used to let them sleep in here every night, but lately…the nightmares…”

“They’ve been happening a lot?”

“They’ve been happening all the _time_.” Her voice breaks on the last word and he unconsciously leans towards her, but she quickly slides her mask back into place – years of practice have served her well. “The dogs get…extremely upset. And they try to wake me, which is difficult, and my reaction to being awoken when I’m having a nightmare is usually as violent as –” She grimaces. “Well, you experienced it firsthand. I didn’t want to risk hurting them, or worry that they might accidentally hurt me while trying to wake me. Besides, it’s not fair for them to have to…deal with me. So I’ve been putting them out of the room.”

The fact that she sees herself as something _to be dealt with_ is abhorrent to him. “Let me assure you, they’re distressed whether you let them in here or not.”

Her worried eyes pass over the animals who now appear to be sleeping. “I had no idea. I thought it’d be better that way.”

“It’s not. I’m guessing they’ve been this upset before, but had no recourse, since I’ve never been…” _here_. He’s never _been here_ and he can only wonder how many times this has happened. How many times he might have been able to help. (It almost physically hurts to think about.)

“Sorry,” she’s repeating. “You shouldn’t have had to…I’m just sorry.”

“It’s got to be a record.” When she looks at him curiously, he explains, “The number of times you’ve apologized to me tonight. Can I save some of them for the future?”

She smiles, but it’s sad. “I owe you that much.”

“You owe me nothing.” She opens her mouth and he repeats, firmly, “ _Nothing_.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Well, I’m used to hearing that from you, at least.” He doesn’t think it’s his imagination that her smile loses some of its sadness. “I told you: you don’t have to apologize to me.” He wants to say more, but doesn’t think it’s the time or the place. It’s rare that he sees this kind of vulnerability from her, so the last thing he wants is to remind her of that fact and have her shut down on him right when she needs him the most.

“We’ll agree to disagree,” she says, running her hands over her face, and when she pulls them away, she looks so _exhausted_ that he wants to hold onto her forever. “I’m tired.”

“I get it. I’ve been where you are.” He shakes his head at how inadequate that is. “I’m _still_ where you are, a lot of nights.”

She’s tapping her fingers on the bedspread. “How often?”

It takes him a few seconds to understand. “A couple a month. Much better than it used to be.” He shifts, moving up a few feet so he can lean against the headboard. When she doesn’t react, doesn’t rebuke him in any way, he carefully stretches his legs out, crossing them at the ankles. “It used to be every night. Every time I fell asleep, I’d be…” He shudders and looks away, over at the dogs. ( _He’s still here_.) “I’d be back…over there.”

“It must be terrible,” she says, somberly. “To relive that.”

“It is.” He turns back to her. “The same way I’m sure it is for you.” He waits for her to explain her own nightmares, but when she doesn’t, he dares to ask, “Richard?”

Her breath stutters in an indication she’s holding onto her control by the thinnest of threads. “I relive his death over and over. Which is patently unfair, not just because I wasn’t even there.” She brushes at her cheek and he realizes that a few tears have escaped against her most ardent will. “In my dreams I’m there, though. And it’s never enough. I can never save him.”

“I’m guessing it’s gotten worse since…”

“Since I learned the truth, yes. Before that, I’d been… I don’t want to say ‘moving on’, because I don’t know if it’s something you can ever truly ‘move on’ from. But things had been getting better. Maybe a nightmare every month or two. And more manageable than these recent ones have been. Once we caught Pryce, it was as if…my mind used that information to fill in the missing pieces and start the entire cycle all over again.” She sounds downright haunted when she asks, “How could I not see it? How could I not see _him_?”

“People like Pryce… They get away with what they do because they’re phenomenal actors and expert manipulators. We see what they want us to see.” He wrenches his thoughts away from where they’re heading (over the betrayals that _he’d_ lived through) because this isn’t about him. “No one else saw it, either, Juliet.”

“Richard did,” she says harshly, and he knows the anger’s directed at herself. “He figured it out.”

“But not right away,” Thomas calmly reminds her. “And you left MI6 after he died, you didn’t keep working with Pryce. If you had… You’re sharp, Juliet. Probably the sharpest person I know. After myself.” She smiles the slightest bit in exasperation, which is a real victory considering the topic. “You would have figured it out, I have no doubt. And once you did, for all we know –” He hesitates, but forces himself to say it: “He might have killed you, too.”

The thought of it…of the world without her… He never would have _known_ her. And it’s –

He can’t do it. He can’t imagine that world. He doesn’t want to live in it. (And he recognizes it’s the same world she’d been left with, after the murder of the person she loved most.)

She shuts her eyes. “I just want it to stop. But it never stops.”

His eyes trace the lines of her face and he wishes he could take this away, somehow. Make it better. (But he doesn’t think he can.) Instead, he tells her, “I know what it’s like.”

Her voice is even more sober than his when she says, “I know you do.” She flips one of her pillows around a few times and then says, reluctantly, “I should try to get back to sleep.”

He’s intimately acquainted with that kind of reluctance. Not wanting to go back to sleep when the odds are good the horrific dreams (the _memories_ ) will return. But if she wants to try, he’s not going to get in her way. “I should head back to the guest house, then.”

She twists her head in his direction so quickly that she actually winces. “You’re –” She snaps her mouth shut. “Yes, of course. Good night.”

He tilts his head a little, studying her. It’s like she’d forgotten that he’d have to leave at some point. It’s like…she wants him to _stay_. (And he knows it’s the kind of thing she would never allow herself to ask of him.) He’d wanted to make things better for her…maybe this is his chance. “I have a proposition for you.”

She’s immediately suspicious. “So help you if you’re going where I think you’re going.”

He’s momentarily thrown (and insanely curious). “Where do you think I’m going?”

“Some version of ‘Hey, Higgins, did you know that if you’re thoroughly worn out, then the odds of dreaming are significantly lessened?’”

 _What?_ He bursts out laughing, so loud that one of the dogs whips its head around to look at him. Apparently he’s no longer considered even the most minor of threats, since the animal immediately resettles, paying him no further attention.

“Juliet Higgins.” He makes sure to sound appropriately admonishing. “I’d like to point out that _you_ are the one who went there and not me. Such thoughts never crossed my mind.” He’s actually being honest, too (if he means _right now specifically_ , that is).

“Like you weren’t going to get there eventually,” she chides, in a tone that means she knows him _too well,_ which he really can’t argue with.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he won’t try to argue, anyways. “I am a man of great integrity,” he says, striving to tamp down on his amusement.

“Oh yes, when I think of you, ‘integrity’ is the first word that comes to mind.”

He ignores her blatant sarcasm. “To think that I’d hit on you during your _hour of need_ –”

“Hour of need?” she repeats, mockingly.

“– is abhorrent to me,” he says haughtily, without acknowledging her interruption. “In fact…” He pretends to think about it, then starts nodding. “Yes. I demand an apology.”

She throws her hands up in what he guesses is exasperation. “You told me to _stop_ apologizing.”

“For other things. Not for impugning my character.”

“Impossible,” she sniffs. “You’d need to _have_ character in order for me to impugn it.”

Despite himself, he really can’t keep up the act, breaking into a grin. “That’s cold, Higgins. Though for the record, I’d like to say that I’m incredibly open-minded, and thus willing to entertain your suggestion.”

“Magnum,” she (rather ineffectively) warns.

“I’ll happily wear you out so that you don’t dream anymore tonight.” He holds his arms out in mock invitation. “I’m at your disposal. Use me at your will.” In response, she pinches his ankle and he quickly pulls his leg away from her. “Hey! On second thought, I rescind my offer. You’re obviously too rough for me.”

“As if you wouldn’t enjoy that,” she shoots back.

“I’m a gentle lover, Higgins.” He exaggeratedly rubs at his ankle while sending her a pointed look. “Clearly, you wouldn’t understand.”

She starts laughing, but within a few seconds it cuts off when her breathing hitches and she buries her face in her hands.

He sits up straighter in alarm, because he’d thought they’d moved beyond the worst (at least for tonight). “What is it?”

“Nothing, nothing.” She waves a hand in his direction without looking up. “You just – you make me laugh.”

He’s completely lost. “And that…makes you cry?”

“I’m not crying,” she sniffs, still not looking at him.

“Okay,” he says easily. “It makes you…emotional?”

She angrily rubs at her eyes before turning back to him. “I’m not… This isn’t who I _am_. After a nightmare, though…”

“It’s like an exposed nerve,” he fills in, knowing it all too well.

“Yes. Exactly.” She seems relieved that he gets it. Or maybe that he isn’t judging her for it. (He promises himself that one day he’s going to convince her that showing emotions isn’t a sign of weakness.) “It takes some time to recover. To build that wall back up again.”

“You don’t have to,” he tells her. “Not with me.”

She looks at him. Just _looks_ at him. And it lasts for long enough that he starts thinking he should feel uncomfortable…but it never happens. “You make me laugh,” she finally says, repeating herself. “And the last person who made me laugh, _all the time_ , was…”

 _Richard_. She doesn’t have to say it: it’s written all over her face.

“I could stop,” Thomas offers, even though he doesn’t know if he can. (He would try, though. For her.) “I could be more serious?”

“No!” she says, so quickly that he’s taken aback. “I mean, no. Never stop. It’s one of the things that I –” She rubs at her neck, glancing away, out at the balcony. “– appreciate about you.”

“Okay, good,” he says, with some relief. “I like making you laugh.”

When she turns back to him, her smile is shakier than it should be. (There’s that exposed nerve again.) “I…” She stops, then tries again. “What was your proposition?”

“Oh right, we got sidetracked by your fantasies about me.”

“Thomas.” She’s trying for stern, but her subsequent laughter belies the attempt. ( _Nope, he’s never going to stop doing that_.)

“It’s simple, really. You have nightmares. I have nightmares.”

“Is this the part of the evening where you summarize the obvious?”

He tosses her an easy grin. “Have I ever told you that I love how patient you are?”

“I have the patience of a veritable saint,” she counters. “It’s necessary when so much of my time is spent with you.” Her assertion is immediately disproven when she snaps her fingers in obvious impatience. “Come on, what’s this proposition?"

“Since we both have nightmares, why don’t we have them together?”

“I’m not following you.”

“I’ll sleep here.” He tries to sound as sure of himself as possible, worried that any hesitation on his part will make her believe he doesn’t really want this or that he’s just offering out of pity – and that couldn’t be further from the truth. “I can wake you if you have one, and you can wake me if…” He trails off, not really wanting to think about his own nightmares right now.

“You want to sleep _here_ ,” she says, biting her lower lip in a bid to suppress her real emotions; they both know he’d asked because she wasn’t about to do it herself.

He can’t sit here and keep watching her try not to cry; it hurts him in a way he doesn’t have adequate words to describe. “Not many people get this offer, Higgins,” he jokes, providing some much needed levity to distract her. “You should be flattered.”

It works perfectly, as evidenced by her double take. “ _Not many people get this offer_ ,” she echoes, in disbelief.

He knows exactly what she’s insinuating. And she’s wrong. (She didn’t used to be, but she is now.) “They don’t,” he insists. “Not anymore.”

“I must be pretty special, then,” she says, trying to tease him in the same way he’d been teasing her – but there’s too much of a real question there for him to completely buy it.

“You are,” he says solemnly, making sure to say it without any of his usual humor. He wants her to know how much he means it.

She smiles at him before asking, hesitantly, “Does it… Have you found that it helps you? Being with someone else?”

“It does,” he answers honestly. “And not just because they’ll wake you. I’ve found that having another person in the room lessens the frequency of my own nightmares.” He doesn’t want to make her any false promises, though. “I’m not saying that last part would be true for you, as well, but I hope it would.”

“And exactly how many people have you tested this theory with?”

It takes him a second to realize she’s attempting to ask a real question by veiling it as a joke. “Not many, actually. Mostly my friends.” He can tell she’s unsure what he means, so he bluntly explains, “There’s not really a choice when you’re being held against your will.” He hates the way she winces at that. “One of us would usually try to stay awake, to keep watch, warn if someone was coming. It wasn’t much, but it was something. The nights they would let some of us stay together… Those were the good nights.” He feels the memories pressing down on him, oppressive in their weight, even after so many years. “Needless to say, there weren’t a lot of good nights.”

She sets her hand on top of his, maybe on instinct, if her surprise at her own action is any indication. He can see the way she steels herself, though. And refuses to pull away. “I’m sorry.”

He inclines his head slightly in acknowledgement. “There were times after, too, that we had to share a room for various reasons. Not often, but…it always helped.” He misses it sometimes. ( _A lot_ , sometimes.)

Maybe he’s convinced her that his presence would be beneficial to her, but from the way she presses her hand down on his, he suspects it’s more that she can read the emotions in him. “Stay,” she whispers, before repeating, much more adamantly, “ _Stay_.”

He searches her eyes. “For me or for you?”

“Does it matter?” she counters. “We can call it an experiment. See if it helps. Either of us.”

“This shouldn’t be about me,” he tells her, not realizing how deeply unhappy he is until he’s actually saying it – he doesn’t want her to think this had all been manipulation on his part, for his own ends. “I offered to stay to help _you_ , not because I was trying to…get you to…”

“I know you wouldn’t do that,” she interrupts, so reassuring that his protest quickly dies out. “I know if that was what you wanted, you would have simply asked me. And I want you to know that…it would be okay with me if you did.” She steadily meets his gaze. “You made me an offer. I’m making one back.”

He swallows. Hard. “Okay.” It’s the only word he can manage in response – anything more and he’s not going to make it out of their conversation in one piece. (Though strangely enough, that thought doesn’t scare him half as much as it used to.)

She switches her focus back to their hands, where she’s loosely holding his, and when he flips his hand over to hold hers in return, she momentarily stills. “I haven’t shared a bed with anyone since Richard.”

He runs his thumb over the back of her hand in quiet sympathy. “You’re in for a treat,” he promises. “I’m a lot of fun.”

“We’re going to _sleep_ , Thomas.” Her tone is the vocal equivalent of rolling her eyes, but her smile is real when she squeezes his hand before letting go and moving back towards her side of the bed. “Not having some sort of party.”

“My company’s the only party you need, Higgins.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means I’m _delightful_.”

“I think I regret this already,” she says, under her breath.

“Now, before we begin, I have some stipulations,” he declares.

“Yes, I _definitely_ regret this.”

“Since I’m sure that neither of us wants a repeat of what happened when I first came into your room –” He waits for her to nod. “– no weapons in bed.” He rummages around for the switchblade from before, finding it half-buried under the rumpled bedspread. He holds it up so she can see what he’s doing and then unceremoniously tosses it over his shoulder, hearing it clatter before skidding along the floor and hitting the wall. Both dogs wrench their heads towards the offending noise, growls building in the backs of their throats.

“Hush, lads,” Juliet calmly orders. “It’s fine. Go back to sleep.” The dogs instantly quiet, dropping their heads again. She hasn’t taken her eyes off Thomas and there’s definite disapproval in them. (It’s reassuring to him now in a way he never could have imagined when they first met; it means that they – that _she_ – is mostly back to feeling normal.) “I’m going to be inspecting the floor for damage.”

He’s entirely unconcerned. “Add it to the monthly bill you love giving me.”

“The bill you never pay?”

“Yes,” he snaps his fingers and points at her, “that one.”

She sighs egregiously. “You could have _walked over there_ to set the knife on a bureau.”

“I could have,” he agrees, “but it wouldn’t have made my point anywhere near as dramatically, now would it?” He feels immense satisfaction at the way she grumbles in discontent, her complaints not fully audible. “And now there’s no threat of being shanked if I have to wake you again.”

Her expression turns sheepish as her eyes flit nervously away, but this isn’t the same remorse and guilt as earlier, this is –

“How many more weapons do you have stashed in this bed?” he demands.

“Not all of them are _in_ it,” she argues. “Some of them are…around it.”

“Higgins.”

“Let’s see.” She begins ticking items off on her fingers, silently mouthing words to herself. “Five, six…”

“Are you actually counting them right now?”

“It’s definitely sev– no, eight. It’s eight.”

“You better find every single one of them.”

“Would you relax, I know exactly where they all are. I think.” At his glare, she holds up her hands. “I’m kidding.” She moves hastily, retrieving six knives and two handguns from various places – her nightstand, under the mattress on her side of the bed, even two taped to the back of the headboard and within easy reach if she’s surprised in the middle of the night.

“My God,” he mutters, staring at the literal cache that she’s gathered, “it’s a wonder I’m not in a hundred pieces right now.”

“You’re so dramatic,” she snipes as she crosses the room to put them all in the top drawer of the dresser near the bathroom, then shuts her bedroom door before returning to the bed. “It’s best to be prepared for any eventuality.”

“What exactly are you preparing for?” he asks incredulously. “A ground invasion of your bedroom?”

“Tell me you don’t have just as many weapons stashed around the guest house,” she challenges.

 _He can’t._ So he deflects instead. “They’re spread out! Not all in the same place.”

“Oh, I have plenty more hidden throughout the house.” She’s neatly arranging herself to sit cross-legged on the bed. “The entire estate, actually.”

He suspects that he’s watching her with too much affection. “Don’t you love that the more we learn about each other, the more we realize how similar we are?”

“I find it rather terrifying, actually,” she says crisply.

Despite their lighthearted conversation, it’s easy to see that she’s becoming more on edge. “You’re not used to having no weapons within reach, are you?”

She rubs at her arms in discomfort. “It feels wrong.”

“Do I need to remind you that – after the dogs – _you_ are the most lethal weapon in this room?”

“You’re right.” She looks him up and down, beginning of a smile forming. “You’d come in a distant fourth to the three of us.”

“I don’t know about _distant_ ,” he protests, making a show of sulking about it. Truth be told, he and Juliet are pretty evenly matched. (He beats her in strength, but she makes up for it in speed and agility – not to mention those stealth moves he never sees coming that he _swears_ are proof she’d been an assassin.) “The security at Robin’s Nest is top-notch,” he continues, “I’ve ensured that myself.”

“Yes, that says a lot considering the front gate was broken for _three months_ before you –”

“So between the _top-notch security_ ,” he repeats loudly, talking right over her, “the dogs, and the two of us, no one who got in here would ever stand a chance.”

“You might have a point, for once in your life,” she reluctantly concedes. She still fidgets as she glances at the dresser again, and he knows that nothing is going to make her feel better. Except…

He goes over to the dresser to retrieve one of the guns, checking it as he returns to the bed.

“I don’t want it,” she immediately protests. “Not after what I did to you before I was fully awake. The last thing I want is to _shoot_ you.”

“We’re in agreement.” He places it in the drawer of the nightstand on his side of the bed. (And is it strange that he’s thinking of it as ‘his’ side? Maybe. Probably. _He doesn’t care_.) “I’ve met my quota of being shot for the year.”

“So have I,” she mutters, the set of her mouth telling him she doesn’t like that reminder. For either of them.

Neither does he, so he defaults to humor again as he gets back in bed. “I’ll keep this one within easy reach – of _me_ , not you.” He smirks at her. “Though you’re welcome to try and get past me to retrieve it.”

“Trust me, that scenario would be infinitely more painful than you’re imagining,” she promises, as his smirk vanishes. She glances at the nightstand, visibly relaxing. “Okay. I approve of your plan.”

“Thought you might.” He yanks at the blanket, not realizing amidst the jumble of bed covers that she’s sitting on half of it, and it causes her to lose her balance, promptly tipping right off the bed.

“Magnum!” she shrieks, from somewhere out of sight (that is…the floor).

“Oh no,” he whispers, staring at the space where she’d been a second before. He wonders if he has time to run. ( _No, she’s always been faster than him._ ) He suppresses his fear, stretching out so he can see over the side of the bed; the dogs have come over and are trying to get as close to her as possible. “Hey, Higgy,” he says nervously, “whatcha doing down there?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Going over my to-do list for tomorrow.” She slowly tilts her head to glare up at him, though it loses some effect when Zeus nudges her head with his own. “Entertaining various revenge scenarios has skyrocketed to the top of – ack!” She begins laughing and spluttering when Apollo licks her face. “Enough, lads. I love you both, too.” She snaps her fingers. “Now go lie down.” They both follow the order without hesitation and Juliet returns to glaring at him.

“On second thought, maybe I _shouldn’t_ sleep here tonight. I’ll go back to –”

“Nowhere,” she hisses, voice deadly. “You are going _nowhere_.”

“As in right now, or as in…ever again?” he asks, and she barely stops herself before she can grin at him; it’s a fleeting moment, but he sees it, and it causes him to relax a little. He offers his hand (in an incredibly brave move on his part – there’s at least a 50% chance she’s going to try and pull him down to the floor with her). “Are you alright?”

“Mostly.” She accepts his hand and he helps haul her back up on the bed. She collapses in a diagonal sprawl, and he thinks he might actually get away with –

“You threw me off the bed!” she rails, flailing an arm in his general direction that’s probably meant to swat at him, but it’s easy enough to avoid (which is the biggest sign yet that she’s a lot more tired than she’s letting on).

“I take issue with that description. You fell. Of your own accord.” He should probably heed the darkening of her eyes, but as usual, it only pushes him further. “You have to work on your balance.”

“What I have to _work on_ is not smothering you by dawn.”

“It was an accident!”

“That is what I’ll tell the authorities when they find your body, yes.” She pauses, replaying his words. “And I thought I fell ‘of my own accord’?”

“It all happened so fast, who can really say?”

“ _I_ can say,” she snaps, “considering _I’m_ the one who got thrown.”

“Again, I didn’t so much ‘throw you’ as –” He cuts himself off, dodging her foot when she tries to kick him. “Alright, we’ll disagree on the description.” Best to switch topics, maybe she’ll forget about the incident entirely. He lifts the corner of the blanket that he’d pulled on before, which she’s now completely on top of. “Do you want this?”

“By all means,” she says acidically, rolling off it so she can kick the entire thing in his direction, “make yourself comfortable.”

“Don’t mind if I do. With your $1000 bedding,” he gripes.

“That’s only the cost of the top quilt,” she says, eyes shining; it’s astonishing how much his discontent eases her aggravation with him. “The bedding all together probably cost three times as much.”

“You’re very spoiled. I hope you know that.”

“Our employer insists on only the best for his staff.”

“And how much did you spend on the bedding in the guest house?”

“I don’t remember,” she says blithely, which tells him it was _significantly_ less.

“Uh huh.” He presses a hand down on the mattress. It is, for lack of a better word, _perfect_. Not too soft or too firm, but some elusively wonderful compromise that he sinks into while still feeling supported. “I don’t even want to know what you paid for this luxury mattress.”

“It’s the exact same one that you have,” she claims, which he doesn’t believe for a second.

“Sure it is.” He flips around a bit, kicking at the blankets, trying to get exactly the way he likes, and he catches her watching him with something like amazement. “What?”

“Are you always this restless? Do you do this all night?”

“Gee, I hope not. You’ll have to let me know.”

“Wonderful. Well, no worries,” she pulls down the sheets on her side, sliding underneath them to get comfortable, “if you’re too unruly I’ll just kick you onto the floor. It would serve you right, and I’m sure the dogs would be glad for the company.”

He thinks about joking that he’d drag her off the bed with him, but considering he _had_ just caused her to fall, he wisely doesn’t make the threat. He leans over to switch off the light, which reminds him that he doesn’t have his phone next to him like usual and he hates sleeping without it. His friends know that if he’s not answering for some reason which is _totally out of his control_ (like falling behind on the bill), they can usually reach him through Juliet, but he figures he should _try_ to be more responsible. So he tells her as much.

“You’re trying to be more responsible?” she manages to get out through her laughter. “ _You_. Thomas Magnum.”

“It’s been known to happen,” he says indignantly.

“It most certainly has not.” She half-sits up on her side of the bed. “And as to your phone, you had it earlier when you came over.”

“I did?” Now that she’s reminded him, he might vaguely remember that. His evenings tend to blur together, and he does come visit her a lot…to the point that he might spend _most_ of his time here nowadays…

“Aren’t you a _private investigator_?” she asks snippily. “Or so you like to claim?”

“Hey,” he mildly protests at that veiled insult, then hits her with a pillow (that probably costs $500) for good measure.

“Hey yourself!” she splutters, brushing some wayward hair out of her face as she uses her other hand to wrestle the pillow away from him. To his surprise, though, she doesn’t retaliate, merely dropping it into her lap with a haughty look that indicates she’s far more sophisticated than him and always will be. (Not that he buys it – he might have when they first met, but certainly not now.) “My _point_ , Thomas, is that you’d think short-term memory would be a crucial skill for your… _profession_.”

He ignores her implication that what he does barely counts as a real job. (She might have a point with some of the cases he’s gotten lately.) “You probably irritated me so much earlier that I forgot I brought my phone with me,” he tries to claim (and they do tend to get lost in their arguments, to the point that everything else in their respective worlds falls by the wayside). “Let me assure you, Higgins,” he makes sure to lace his tone with just the appropriate amount of innuendo, “I have _all_ the necessary skills to be a successful P.I.”

“Let me guess. Tricking – I mean, ‘seducing’,” she uses air quotes, “pretty marks into doing what you want them to do.”

“Got it in one.” He sarcastically applauds her, enjoying the way she narrows her eyes in return. “And despite your derision, we both know that takes talent to pull off. Manipulating people is a skill that we _both_ have.” He sends her a sideways glance. “Though I’m much better at it than you, thanks to my innate charm.” That time she _does_ hit him with the pillow – sophistication be damned, apparently.

“Go get your phone,” she orders. “It’s probably lost in the couch you were sleeping on.”

It turns out she’s right: he finds his phone underneath one of the throw pillows on the sofa. He heads back to her bedroom, having a surreal moment when he shuts the door behind him. He waits a few seconds, half-expecting her to say she’s changed her mind and he should go, but she’s merely watching him expectantly, so he waves his phone at her.

“Found it! Right where you said it would be.”

“You’re welcome that I did your job for you,” she says, faux-sweetly. “And yes, I do mean your _literal_ job.”

“I give credit where it’s due,” he graciously concedes, moving to set his phone on the nightstand and resettle himself on the bed. “You’ve learned a lot by working with me. You might even be qualified to be my protégé, by now.”

“Your protégé?” she chokes out, with no small amount of horror.

“If you don’t like that title, we could go with assistant,” he suggests, preparing to duck whatever she might throw his way when her eyes flash in annoyance.

“I am incredibly close to kicking you out of here.”

He pauses in the middle of rearranging the covers. “You know I’m only kidding.” He doesn’t want to push his luck and get thrown out. Though if she’s reconsidering… “If you really want me to go back to the guest house, I will.”

“I didn’t mean back to the guest house,” she says coolly. “I meant off the estate entirely.”

Now he gets it, the thread of humor in her voice giving her away; she’s teasing him right back and he can only blame his tiredness at the late hour (or rather, early – it’s 2 am) for failing to notice right away. “You have no authority to evict me,” he reminds her, anyways.

“Mr. Masters gave me full discretion when it comes to managing his estate.” She’s clearly enjoying issuing her ‘threats’. “I’m sure if I provided him with a full list of your transgressions, he’d side with me.”

“All lies!” he declares. “We both know they’d _all_ be lies.” She seems rather unimpressed, so he tries another tack. “Come on, Higgins. You’d be lost without me.”

“I’d be saner without you,” she counters. “More well-rested. Less stressed. Better able to do my job without constant interruptions. I’d also have a lot more free time, that’s for certain, and I –”

“I get it,” he says bitingly, knowing she might go on all night if he lets her.

“You didn’t let me finish,” she says, carefully. “I might not be here without you.”

He turns to look at her, but she’s staring at her hands. “What?”

“I was thinking about leaving. I was…suffocating here. It’s an easy job. Too easy. And it didn’t take me long after I accepted the position to realize it’s not the kind of thing for me…long-term. So I was considering my future options, and then you moved into the guest house, and you were such an unmitigated disaster that I _had_ to stay to make sure the estate didn’t fall into ruins around you.”

“I don’t know if I agree with that characterization,” he protests, even as he parses her words, reading between the lines. While she’s said it in a particularly unflattering way, he can still hear it: “I gave you a reason to stay.”

“Yes,” she agrees, in a rush. “And not just because I had to keep things together. It’s been more than that. Assisting with your cases, helping people… That was – _is_  – important to me, too.”

“You’re welcome,” he tells her, because he knows that entire admission was her way of thanking him, even if she hadn’t outright said it.

She nods in confirmation that he’s correct in his assumption. “As such,” she concludes, returning to her more confident demeanor, “I suppose I’ll allow you to stay on.”

“That’s very gracious of you,” he says dryly, “considering you have no other option.” He thinks about pressing her for more information, but he can tell it had taken a lot for her to say all that, so he decides to let the admission stay where it is. For now. (But he files it away, because it’s definitely something he wants to know more about in the future.)

His eyes fall onto his phone when he reaches over to switch off the bedside lamp. “Do you have an extra –” He stops when she holds out her hand, showing him a phone charger that has the cord wrapped smoothly around it. (Who keeps their chargers that neat? Seriously.) “It’s like you’re psychic,” he tells her, as he plugs in his almost-dead phone.

“No, I’m just a self-sufficient adult. Which is also what you are. Supposedly.” She’s watching him with no shortage of amusement. “Although you _are_ a grown man who lives off his employer…”

“Those _benefits_ are part of my employment agreement,” he says, which is true in spirit, if not exactly in letter. “And it’s rich of you to lecture me when you enjoy those same perks, too.”

“The difference is I’ve earned them,” she insists, though her words are coming slower, “unlike some other people around here.”

He considers arguing further, but they’d probably go on forever and he can hear how tired she is. He lies down on his side of the bed before making a show of checking under the covers. “You didn’t hide more weapons while I was getting my phone, did you?”

“I wouldn’t do that.” She’s turned onto her side to face him, and upon hearing how serious her voice is, he regrets the joke.

“I know. I was kidding.”

To his shock, she reaches towards him, and he holds his breath, having no idea what she’s doing until she touches his neck, brushing her thumb over the cut from earlier. He’s expecting her to apologize again, so he’s floored when she whispers, “I wish I could take back this entire evening.”

“Really?” he asks, as she pulls her hand away and retreats more to her side of the bed. “Because I don’t.”

She’s on her back now, staring up at the ceiling. “You don’t.” Her voice is flat enough that he can tell she doesn’t believe him.

“I don’t. Because it ends with us here. Together. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not,” she murmurs, on the verge of a question, but not quite managing it.

He answers anyways. “It’s not.”

“I shouldn’t have –” She runs her hands through her hair. “I still wish I could take back what I did. And I’m still sorry for it.”

“You don’t have to be sorry because I understand. A lot of things.” He lets that sink in. “Why you reacted the way you did. The way memories haunt you. The things that you’ve lost.” He takes a steadying breath. “You, Juliet. I understand _you_.”

She glances over at him. “I think…I understand you, too.”

“You do,” he acknowledges, feeling an ache at the back of his throat. “You have for a long time.”

They understand _each other_. And that was something he’d never expected, back when they’d first met, but things had been changing between them for a long time. They’d gone from strangers thrown together by circumstance, to acquaintances who barely tolerated each other, to actual friends – even if that’s not immediately apparent to outsiders. They like to harass each other, it’s always been their preferred method of interaction, but underneath it all is genuine affection for one another.

And lately, he’s been wondering…not if they _could_ be more, but if maybe they already _are_.

Juliet’s fallen silent again, signaling the end of their conversation, and he knows she probably wants to go back to sleep. He’s pretty tired himself, but he’s wound up from the events of the evening – and those two things together are a terrible combination. He mirrors her position by turning onto his back and tries not to move too much as he readjusts the covers; her complaints from earlier were lighthearted enough, but he really doesn’t want to bother her if she’s finally getting some much-needed rest.

He lets his eyes fall shut, enjoying the quiet of the room, but soon enough, he can tell he’s being watched. He turns his head to find Juliet lying on her side, facing him again, and much closer than she’d been when he closed his eyes. (He hadn’t felt her move at all on the mattress – it really _is_ that good.)

“Stealthy,” he whispers, causing her to jump guiltily. “I’d credit your continued help on my cases as keeping your skills sharp, but in this instance, I think it’s just the mattress.”

“I was only –” She sounds a little lost as she rolls over, away from him. “I didn’t mean to –” She gives up and slides further back in a move he really doesn’t like.

“That wasn’t criticism,” he says lightly. She’s returned to her own side of the bed, and even though that’s only a few feet away, it might as well be miles.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, even though there’s nothing to be sorry about. And there’s something in her voice… It takes him a few moments to place it as _resignation_.

She must think he’d been subtly warning her back to her own space, when in reality, he’d just been teasing her, like he always does. His heart sinks when he realizes what she must have wanted – and it’s another thing she will _never ask of him_. Not unless she knows it’s okay, knows it’s something they’re allowed to have with each other. And the only way to show her…

“Get back over here,” he says, and even though it’s a demand, it’s as fond as he can possibly make it.

She doesn’t move, and he has no doubt that she’s trying to read whatever nuance she can into his order, analyze it every possible way before she responds. But that will take too long for his liking.

He’s so confident in his assessment of the situation that he doesn’t debate the pros and cons of his next action, just reaches over to wrap his arm around her waist and pull her towards him. She yelps in surprise, but makes no protest as he resituates them so that she’s on her back in the middle of the bed and he’s lying alongside her. He deliberately keeps a few inches of space between them, but leaves his arm settled over her waist. They’re so close now that she must be able to feel his breath stirring her hair as he breathes.

He waits for her reaction. It’s possible she’ll lecture him (as she so loves to do), or shove him away and return to her own side of the bed. Maybe she’ll even kick him out altogether. But he doesn’t think any of those things are likely. Not after their discussion tonight, and certainly not after she’d initially been the one trying to get closer to him.

Sure enough, she just exhales, and with it, he can feel her relax by degrees. Her next action is the most telling, though: she erases the remaining distance between them, moving so that she’s pressed up against him, setting her head under his chin and shutting her eyes.

He lets a minute pass before he whispers, “Do you remember earlier, when I told you I had stipulations for doing this?”

He feels her tense against him, even as she nods.

“I only told you the first, which was no weapons. The second stipulation…this is it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That you tell me if you need me. It doesn’t matter if I’m asleep – wake me up. The whole point of this is to help each other if we can, so don’t suffer in silence because you think you’d be bothering me. You wouldn’t be.”

“I wouldn’t suffer in…” Her voice fades, unable to finish a denial that isn’t true, not when they’re being as honest with each other as they are tonight.

“You wanted to be closer to me, but you didn’t want to ask,” he reminds her, gently. “That’s the kind of thing I mean. So promise me, from now on, that you’ll tell me. And that goes for wherever I am – here or in the guest house or _anywhere_. If you’re in a bad place and you need someone…just _tell_ me. If you call me at 3 in the morning, I’m always going to answer.”

She tilts her head towards his, even though he can’t see her face because of the way they’re lying. The only indication that she’s affected by his offer is the fine wavering of her voice when she says, “Only if you promise the same.”

“I promise.”

“Then I do, too."

He relaxes, a significant weight easing. “You can ask me for anything. _Anything_. Even if it’s something as simple as lying here with you.”

She moves her hand to his arm, still draped over her waist, and wraps her fingers around his forearm, maybe in acknowledgement. Or thanks. In response, he tightens his hold (because he meant it when he said she could ask him for anything – she doesn’t even have to use words).

The air conditioning kicks on again with a soothing hum, and it’s the only sound in the room aside from their breathing and the rustle of the dogs occasionally stretching or switching positions.

It hits him, in an overwhelming rush, how much he enjoys being there with her. He enjoys being _anywhere_ with her, really, but this is…it’s different. Sharing the same space, drawing comfort from each other… He’s had occasional flings since Hannah, but he hasn’t allowed himself to do _this_ with anyone in years – and he’s pretty sure the same has been true for her.

Until now.

Maybe this is another thing he should set aside, or just let go. But there’s a restlessness in him that won’t settle, not unless he knows that, eventually… “We’re going to talk about this, right?”

She’s quiet for so long that he thinks she might have chosen not to respond, until she says, “Yes. Just…not quite yet.”

He can’t help smiling into her hair; her willingness to talk about it at all means that he’d been right – she feels this, too. “Okay.”

“Soon,” she adds, maybe as a promise to both of them.

“That works for me,” he agrees, tapping his fingers against her side. Then, solely to be difficult, he asks, “Out of curiosity, what’s your definition of ‘soon’?”

“The opposite of ‘not soon’,” she says, probably just to annoy him.

“I have a lot going on,” he warns her. “Might be difficult to make room in my schedule.”

“You get up around noon,” she scoffs, “and you ‘work’ – I use that term loosely – approximately three hours a week.”

He’s borderline affronted. (This week so far he’s worked _almost_ five hours.) “It’s called effective time management, Higgins. I’d be more than happy to share my strat–”

She nudges his side, smile playing in her voice when she orders, “Go to sleep.”

He laughs lightly, but obligingly stops talking; he can feel it when she falls asleep not long after, the rest of the tension leaving her, and her hand heavier where it’s still resting on his arm. He hopes she won’t have more nightmares tonight, but he also knows firsthand how difficult ( _sometimes impossible_ ) they are to escape.

At least if she’s tortured by them again, he’ll be with her.

(He’ll _always_ be here for her, if she lets him.)

Even though they haven’t yet defined whatever’s between them, or talked about what they might have in the future, he has a pretty good idea where they’re going. And he plans to do everything in his power to hold onto this. To hold onto _her_.

As he drifts off to sleep, his final thought is that despite all his questions, despite everything he’s not sure of, there’s one thing he knows for certain – and that knowledge brings him a kind of peace he hasn’t felt in a very long time.

Juliet Higgins.

He knows _her_.

**Author's Note:**

> I have the vaguest of plans for a sequel from Juliet's POV - not of this night, but another night in the future. They're de facto together by the end of this, but I think I'd like to see it 'officially' happen in this universe.


End file.
